Yesterday was another superb round of the Hutt Valley Motorsport Club LeMons Autocross series. The team at Home Built NZ entered the Sentra again but with a couple of mods...
Instead of having the incredibly restrictive factory airbox we removed it completely and just used the factory air filter on top of the carburettor. This improved the airflow into the engine by roughly 25 - 30%.
To help extract this air we made a custom cat back exhaust system that is far less restrictive than the factory "pea shooter" and muffler. This new system is completely interchangeable with the factory one and can be swapped back to factory easily when using the car for road use.
The awesome guys at Nefarious Motor Sport kindly donated a decal for the Sentra and it looks excellent. Their insane supercharged Corolla was also competing and sounded like a WRC car with the exhaust note reverberating off the hills. Truly wicked!!!
I was incredibly lucky to score a ride in Shane Windley's absolutely superb Nissan 200SX drift car which went like the clappers and was incredibly stable while drifting through the corners. A big thanks to Shane for this awesome experience and thumbs up for the excellent and strongly built 200SX!!!
All sorts of cars competed in the event such as these MX5's, stock R33 Skyline GTS25 sedan, S14 Silvia, Integra, Levin and MGF.
This little JDM rarity also turned up to the autocross. It's called a Mazda Autozam AZ-1 and is a Japan only "Kei" car. The AZ-1 is powered by a 657cc turbocharged three cylinder engine that develops 65 BHP and 85 NM of torque factory. This one is a rare Mazdaspeed model that features a redesigned body kit, uprated suspension, LSD and other minor upgrades.
This car is sort of like a miniature Ford RS200 with a hint of Toyota MR2 (there's also one in the background) and also a bit of Delorean with the gullwing style doors.
The big ol' Subaru Legacy tank was back in action again and put on a great show for everyone through the constant use of the handbrake.
This super rare Toyota Corolla GT sedan was also back in action and went quite well.
These are only a few snippets of the diverse range of cars that turned up and we will post more pics as they become available (I left the camera behind)
Overall, the autocross was another outstanding day and everyone had a lot of fun. The event was run seamlessly yet again by the great team at the Hutt Valley Motorsport Club. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for some more cool car stuff!!!
Welcome to this week's NZ Motorsport article. This week we are writing about an absolutely superb motoring event that is held every year at Ruapuna in Christchurch, the Skope Classic.
The Skope Classic was started 25 years ago with Skope sponsoring the event for the past fourteen years. The event primarily features historical and retro racing cars in a similar way to the MG Classic which is held at Manfeild each year.
If you are a fan of classic and vintage vehicles then the Skope Classic is the event for you. Most years over 250 cars turn up to compete in the many races held over the course of the weekend and there is always a great variety of cars competing on the track.
One highlight of The Skope Classic is the retro Group A Touring car races that feature real and replica cars that would've competed in events such as the Nissan Mobil 500 and Bathurst back in the 80's and 90's. Racers such as the BMW 635 CSi (top) and Nissan Skyline GTR R32 (bottom) are examples of cars that raced in that era and also compete at the classic.
Overall, The Skope Classic is an absolutely stunning event that every car fan should go to at least once in their lifetime. The variety of vehicles there is astounding and there is so much fun to be had watching them roar around the track. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more cool car stuff!!!
This week's Trade Me find is a rather beaten up but solid 1991 Nissan Cefiro drift car. This particular car looks like it could be great to start drifting in and comes pre battle scarred.
The beast is powered by a RB20DET, the infamous motor out of the Nissan Skyline R32 GTS-t. It is a 2.0L Twin cam 24 valve straight six with a single turbocharger that produces 210 BHP from factory. This one probably produces more than the factory quoted horsepower as it has a turbo from an RB25DET, a Speedlab ECU chip and a straight pipe exhaust with a single resonator.
Keeping the engine cool is a large front mount intercooler that takes up most of the front of the car. This will help keep the engine cool while limit bashing on the race track and looks damn cool. The Cefiro also sits on Tein adjustable suspension in the rear and D2 adjustables on the front.
Although the back end is rather battered, the car still appears reasonably straight and would make a good base for a project. The car comes with six sets of skid tyre's so you can thrash it to your hearts content, a spare RB25DE motor, a Link G1 ECU and spare bumpers and headlights.
The interior is a mix of factory Cefiro and custom door cards. Note the de-airbagged factory steering wheel.
Overall, this Cefiro appears to still have plenty of life left in it. The car is located in Auckland and is a steal with an asking price of $4,000 including all the spare parts that come with it.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more cool car stuff!!!
Welcome to a new segment called "Once common but now rare". This new article covers cars that were once a common site on New Zealand roads but have now seemed to have disappeared and are an uncommon site on the road. This week's car is well loved by Mazda enthusiasts the world over and are usually seen running a rotary engine instead of the car's little four cylinder engine, The Mazda 323 "Bugeye".
The "Bugeye" was first introduced in January of 1977 as a cheap to run and great little car. (Hence American versions were named GLC for "Great Little Car") They were quite economical with 985, 1272 and 1415 cc four cylinders with an option for a 1490 cc motor in the van body style. These came matched to either a four speed manual transmission or a three speed auto.
The Mazda could be had in four body styles. A 3 door hatchback, 5 door hatchback, 3 door wagon and 5 door wagon. The car was quite light at 812 kg and delivered peppy performance. Production of the "Bugeye" ended in June 1979 and the 323 was facelifted and had a more angular front end treatment.
Now the reason why these things are rare is that in the 80's and 90's and even the early 2000's these were pretty cheap and were previously used as granny's runabout. Then people discovered that the Wankel Rotary engine used in the Mazda RX series and Cosmo's could fit in the engine bay of the 323, sparking an entirely new trend. If you put a high revving, performance oriented Rotary engine into your clapped out 323, you're hardly gonna just putt around in it are you? Thought not, and this is one of the main reasons why there are practically NONE around.
Overall, the Mazda 323 "Bugeye" is a great little car (pun intended) and I would gladly own one. The 323 is a great example of what was once a cheap runabout that has now evolved into a cult classic. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more cool car stuff!!!
Welcome to another write up about a great New Zealand made car. This time, I am writing about the light and low Fraser 7 sports car.
Fraser Cars was founded in 1988 by Neil Fraser in Auckland. The company was founded after Neil was impressed with the performance of the original Lotus 7's and decided he would try his hand at building them. The result was three initial orders and now there are over 330 Fraser's throughout New Zealand and the world.
The Fraser company was bought in 2006 by Scott and Ida Tristram after Scott had worked there as a chassis builder for years. Fraser can build a Lotus 7 replica to any specification you like or can supply a comprehensive kit if you wish to build one yourself. The company employs 5 full time staff that engineer and build these fabulous cars. The cars are constructed out of a tubular chassis with a painstakingly made, hand formed aluminium body. Power is provided by any engine you could fit under the low bonnet but is usually supplied via the legendary 16 valve Twin Cam 1.6 litre Toyota 4AGE. This powertrain is incredibly reliable, lightweight and flexible throughout the rev range. People have also utilised Mazda rotary engines to power their 7's which must mean that they absolutely fly!
Overall, the Fraser 7 is an incredibly faithful and improved reproduction of the original Lotus Seven. The Fraser is another great example of awesome Kiwi car building that has become a rather successful business.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more cool car stuff!!!
Photo Credit: Fraser Cars NZ
Welcome to a long awaited update on Project Whizbox, the trusty rusty Mini. In this update, we'll show you how to test if your subframe is straight or not and how we have strengthened our subframe to take the abuse of the race track environment.
We started off by making sure the front subframe is straight. This is essential because if we put the car back together with a bent front subframe, the whole car will be bent and won't handle properly. To check if it is straight we used a plumbbob which is a weight on the end of a string.
We hang the plumbbob from each corner of the subframe and mark where the weight hangs on the floor. This gives us an accurate way of measuring the distances between each corner of the subframe.
The factory front subframe width for the front is 660.4 MM and the rear is 412.7 MM. My subframe was exactly 660.4 MM on the front and 412.7 MM on the rear meaning that I have a dead straight subframe!
Next up was repairing any dented bits that didn't really need to be fixed but were just annoying to look at. Thankfully, there was only two bits that were dented (as seen above) and were easily mended with a large hammer!
Voila! Dents gone!
Last but definitely not least was the seam welding of the subframe. This ensures that the subframe has less of a chance of warping or bending and also stiffens it up for hopefully better handling. We also added gussets to help stop the subframe bending under extreme circumstances such as bumpy roads or a massive rally car jump.
That concludes our update on Project Whizbox. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates and awesome car stuff.
